2,977 people died 19 years ago. Plus many of the responders have died of related illness since then. 
The years have gone by so quickly. Life has never been completely normal since 9/11. 2020 has been the worst year that I’ve ever experienced.
Where is the Straight Dope thread from that day? I have a harder time finding things now we moved.
With 190K Americans dead up to this point from our current crisis, it is a very tough year. I would agree that 2020 has been really tough.
I lost my sense of security and safety after 9/11.
I’m always apprehensive when I check the news. How many of our overseas troops died, terrorist attacks, school shootings and tropical storms. It’s always something.
Now this year we’re hit by Covid-19. Just had a tropical storm hit the coast last week. Fires in California.
It all gets to be a bit too much.
2020 has been the worst year I’ve experienced, but September 11, 2001 was the worst day. We were all reeling. I spent the day helping my teen-aged students try to comprehend what was happening while covering my own shock and alarm.
We’ve lost the sense of unity we had in the weeks that followed. If, God forbid, something that cataclysmic were to happen today, there’d be no unity, no shared mourning, no mutual grief, only finger-pointing, mistrust, and rage.
Yeah, 9/11’s rally-together effect was unfortunately a one-time phenomenon. We won’t see that happen again in our hyperpolarized red-vs-blue society today.
I opened court with a moment of silence this morning. I still remember 9-11-01 very well.
The derecho in Iowa and Illinois.
mahaloth, this is not that original thread. However, this is the Narrative of my experiences as an E.M.T. from the September 11, 2001 WTC attack.
It actually extended all the way into Indiana.
The same question was just asked here.
So having found it, here it is:
(I actually find it much easier to find things now using the board search. It was a little glitchy when we first moved, but it seems to be working pretty well now.)
Might want to ask anyone who looked middle eastern or wears a turban or any kind of head covering how much of a ‘rally together’ effect there was…
QFT.
Since I am not a historian, and my knowledge of current events lurches from “razor sharp understanding of every detail” to “huh…what?..I don’t remember,” I’m not prepared to defend my thesis, but: I do think that so much of what is wrong in America today can be traced back to that event.
Hey, Americans from all walks of life ranging from white Catholics to white Protestants banded together in racism, jingoism, heavy-handed nationalism, and paranoia!
Yep! I get tired of the mythology surrounding 9/11, that we ‘all came together’ and put aside our differences. There were lots of attacks on Americans who looked like they might be Islamic to violent, ignorant types (including Orthodox Jews and Sikhs, both groups traditionally at odds with Muslims), and lots of aggressive ‘wave that flag now boy’ type incidents. The Patriot Act was the subject of a lot of controversey, non-Republicans didn’t jump in behind Bush’s foreign policy plans and continued to protest him, Republicans didn’t do anything to come together with anyone not following their line, and more.
Just to give it some hard numbers:
And some issues reported by the DOJ:
I apologize for not mentioning the hate crimes and vicious attitudes toward Muslims. You’re both right: the unity was not all-inclusive, and I should have remembered that very important point. Predictably, in times of crisis some people turn ugly, and the ugliness hasn’t abated since 9/11.
Yet there were many of us who fought the anti-Muslim idiocy, just as we fought against Jerry Falwell’s noxious claim that the attacks were brought on by God’s wrath against gays and feminists. Domestic unity was marred by this crap, but it wasn’t obliterated. Political divisions did cease to matter for a time. And the international outpouring of grief and solidarity from nations around the world, including many Muslim-majority countries was definitely not a myth.
Using a Sharpie, you can make it go wherever you want.
I knew that, but got carried away since I had a sister in Iowa (Cedar Rapids, which was hit the worst) and a brother in Illinois. I hope all in Indiana fared well and are getting the disaster relief needed.
By the time it got to Indiana it had diminished to EF1 tornado levels and between that and our building codes it wasn’t too bad. Some people had power out for over a week but they’re all restore now.
And no, we’re getting zero disaster relief but frankly I’m more upset at Iowa and western Illinois being neglected than my county. We had lots of damage, but not the wipe-out-your-livelihood-and-everything-you-own levels parts of Iowa did.
Glad you and yours are ok and everyone there got power back fairly quickly.
It will take most of a generation for the affected parts of Iowa to restore it’s landscape. At least very few lives were lost. Everything else can be replaced.